Pi Atelier

An elegant, information-rich status and menu bar for Pi.

Pi Atelier replaces Pi's default footer with a calm, responsive Status Rail while preserving the operational metrics that matter during long coding sessions.

Wide terminals use two stable zones: agent state and workspace identity stay left, while readable telemetry is right-aligned. The extension always uses its fixed dark Midnight Spectrum—blue input/context, purple output/menu, cyan cache, amber cost/working, and red danger—regardless of the selected Pi theme.

Preview

● PONDERING... · gpt-5.6-sol · low · main*        in 324k  out 15k  cache 99%  $5.041 (sub)  ctx 27.0% (auto)  ⌥A

Fixed Dark Midnight Spectrum

Pi Atelier has one visual palette. Selecting a light, dark, or custom Pi theme does not change the footer's colors: labels, workspace text, metric values, state anchors, warnings, and errors all retain the same dark-style treatment. With NO_COLOR, the footer emits no custom RGB and uses theme-native neutral and semantic roles.

Features

• Preserves cumulative input, output, cache-read, cache-write, cache-hit, cost, subscription, context, and compaction information
• Responsive one-line layout that never wraps
• Model and thinking-level controls
• Searchable tool controls
• Editorial, minimal, and classic display presets
• Session details, renaming, and safe compaction controls
• Fixed dark Midnight Spectrum across every selected theme, with a NO_COLOR fallback
• User and trusted-project configuration
• No telemetry or external network requests

Requirements

• Pi 0.80.7 or newer
• Node.js 22.19.0 or newer
• Interactive TUI mode

Install

pi install npm:pi-atelier

Try a checkout without installing it permanently:

pi -e ./pi-atelier

Pi packages execute with your full system permissions. Review third-party source before installation.

Local development

git clone https://github.com/michaelmjhhhh/pi-atelier.git
cd pi-atelier
npm install
npm run check
pi -e .

Footer anatomy

• in cumulative input tokens
• out cumulative output tokens
• cache latest cache-hit percentage in the editorial preset
• read, write, and hit detailed cache telemetry in the classic preset
• $ cumulative estimated cost
• (sub) OAuth subscription-backed access
• ctx context utilization
• (auto) automatic context compaction
• * tracked working-tree changes

READY remains fixed when idle. During each work cycle, the working label is selected once from a playful built-in phrase set—such as KNEADING, MOONWALKING, or PONDERING—and remains stable until the cycle ends. When the full activity label fits, its ellipsis shrinks from ... to .. to . every 400 ms. Narrower terminals use the compact, static WORKING label.

Menu

Open Pi Atelier with:

/atelier

The default shortcut is alt+a. The menu contains:

• Model — choose an authenticated model or thinking level
• Tools — search and toggle active Pi tools
• Display — switch presets and save user defaults
• Session — inspect, rename, or compact the current session

Additional commands:

/atelier disable
/atelier enable

Configuration

User configuration:

~/.pi/agent/pi-atelier.json

Trusted project configuration:

<project>/.pi/pi-atelier.json

Project settings override user settings only after Pi trusts the project. Menu changes apply to the current session; Save as user default writes user configuration atomically. Pi Atelier never modifies project configuration from the menu.

Complete example:

{
  "preset": "editorial",
  "shortcut": "alt+a",
  "segments": [
    "brand",
    "activity",
    "metrics",
    "context",
    "model",
    "git",
    "statuses",
    "menu"
  ],
  "density": "comfortable",
  "ornament": "none",
  "contextWarning": 70,
  "contextDanger": 90,
  "currencyDecimals": 3,
  "showExtensionStatuses": true,
  "showSessionActions": true
}

Unknown or invalid values are ignored with one warning. The required metrics and context segments are restored if omitted. The editorial preset always suppresses the brand ornament; restrained displays ATELIER only for non-editorial configurations that include the brand segment.

Presets

• editorial — default Status Rail with activity, workspace identity, cache-hit summary, and telemetry
• minimal — compact activity, metrics, context, model, and menu
• classic — detailed cache telemetry, context, model, Git, and extension statuses

Responsive behavior

The Status Rail removes optional information by priority as the terminal narrows instead of switching to fixed layouts. Brand and extension statuses are removed first, followed by Git and thinking level, cost, model, input and output totals, cache, and finally the menu shortcut. Activity and context are retained longest, and the result is truncated safely rather than wrapping when space is exceptionally tight.

Privacy and security

Pi Atelier:

• Performs no telemetry, analytics, or network calls
• Does not store prompts, responses, credentials, or session content
• Reads structured usage metadata already available inside Pi
• Executes local git status --porcelain --untracked-files=no after relevant events to show tracked dirty state
• Reads project configuration only when Pi reports the project as trusted

Footer conflicts

Pi supports one custom footer at a time. If multiple extensions call setFooter, extension load order determines which footer is visible. Pi Atelier does not wrap undocumented footer internals. Disable it with /atelier disable to restore Pi's built-in footer.

Troubleshooting

The menu shortcut does not open

Some terminals or personal keymaps intercept alt+a. Use /atelier, then choose another shortcut in pi-atelier.json and run /reload.

Metrics differ from the current context percentage

Token and cost metrics are cumulative across the entire session. Context percentage describes only the current model context after compaction.

The footer is missing

Pi Atelier intentionally does not install terminal UI in print, JSON, or RPC modes. In TUI mode, check whether another extension replaced the footer later in load order.

Publishing

Release verification must include:

npm run check
npm pack --dry-run
npm pack

Inspect the tarball before running npm publish.

License

MIT